


Everything We Need

by FemmeslashFanatic (with_bleeding_hands)



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: ADHD Leia Organa, Asexual Rey (Star Wars), Bathing/Washing, Bipolar Leia Organa, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Kissing, Leia Organa Deserved Better, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey Hates Kylo Ren, Rey Needs A Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/with_bleeding_hands/pseuds/FemmeslashFanatic
Summary: As the Resistance scrambles to set up a new base of operations on a remote planet, Rey and Leia think of all they have lost and find comfort in each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even know anymore. It’s a vague attempt at an H/C fic, I guess. Also, this fic will be a longer one, and explore my headcanons that Leia is bipolar like Carrie and also ADHD. (Funnily enough, those are two of the few neurodivergent conditions I don't have :P)

I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered the bustling Resistance base on D’Qar and felt a horrible lurch in my stomach as I mentally compared it to the current state of the Resistance, so terribly dwindled that the entire complement had been able to fit on the _Millennium Falcon_. I thought of the strange, horrible bond that Snoke had forged between me and Be—Kylo Ren, how I had failed to bring Kylo back to the Light, how I had been so lonely that I actually _missed_ Kylo reaching out to me. And my parents…I had run from the knowledge for so long, but they hadn’t loved me. They had sold me and abandoned me. I really did come from nowhere. I really was no one.

The walls of the new base were thin and I didn’t want anyone to hear me crying. I grabbed a few things—my pillow, my toothbrush, a change of clothes—slipped my shoes on, and headed for the _Falcon_.

I had only made it a few yards from my quarters when a voice stopped me. “Rey?”

I whirled, my heart racing, but it was only Leia. She wore a plain gray robe over her sleepwear, and she carried her cane, but she did not appear to be leaning on it. I felt another sickening churn in my stomach as I thought of how close Leia had come to dying. “Leia.” My voice cracked.

“Going somewhere?” she asked me. Her voice was kind. I wondered if she had sensed my sorrow, my loneliness.

“I thought maybe I could sleep better somewhere familiar,” I said. “I was going to the _Falcon_.”

“Would you like company?” she asked. 

At first, I didn’t know what to say. I both wanted and didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want anyone seeing or hearing me cry, but as I opened my mouth to demur, Leia took my hand and squeezed. She wanted to make me feel better, I realized; she wouldn’t judge me for being upset. “Yes. Please come with me,” I said.

We walked out to the _Falcon_ still holding hands. As we entered the sleeping quarters, I wondered—too late—if being on the ship would be too difficult for Leia, remind her of Han, and I did feel a small, sharp pang of sadness from her, but she said nothing. I sat on the bed where I ordinarily slept, and I meant to say something to Leia, but the tears came before I could get any words out.

I had only a few seconds to feel ashamed; Leia sat on the bed, gathered me into her arms, and held me close while I wept. I locked my arms around her, remembering the first time she had embraced me, when we first met, how comforting it had felt to have her arms around me. Now, even though the tears didn’t stop, her warmth and closeness and soft touch on my hair were immensely soothing.

I never wanted her to let me go.

“Leia,” I choked, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” she asked me.

“I couldn’t bring Ben back to you,” I sobbed. “Leia, I tried…”

“I know,” she soothed, running a hand through my hair. “You did your best. I couldn’t have asked for more from you.”

“I should have known I couldn’t do it,” I whispered. “I’m no one.”

“No!” Leia held me tightly. “How could you say that?”

“I come from nowhere,” I said. “My parents sold me. They didn’t love me. Even my parents…abandoned me.”

“Your parents,” said Leia firmly, “can only be described with Shyriiwook insults that I’m not sure I can pronounce for what they did to you.” She reached to caress my face. “You are someone.”

The last person to say something like that to me was Kylo, and he had only been trying to get me to join his new regime, isolating me from anyone else who might care for me. But I sensed nothing but sincerity from Leia. Leia had no agenda other than helping me feel better. “Do you mean it?” I said.

“Of course I mean it.” She touched my face again, stroking my cheek with the back of her hand. My body felt flushed and warm; no one had ever touched me this way. I decided I liked it very much, at least when Leia was doing it. “I don’t just mean that you’re strong with the Force, either. I sense goodness in you. Selflessness.” She paused. “I don’t even need the Force to be able to tell that, really.”

My sobs redoubled, but this time I couldn’t quite tell why. Leia continued.

“Your friend, Finn, thinks so highly of you that he was willing to risk his life for you. Poe likes you, even though you two don’t know each other well.” She paused. “I happen to think pretty highly of you too. The people who know you can tell you are _someone_ , Rey.”

“Thank you,” I managed.

Between Leia’s reassurance and her holding me, I calmed down soon after that, but I still held on to Leia. “So I’m guessing you haven’t experienced much affection,” she said.

“No, but I like it,” I said.

She rested one hand on my shoulder. “Do you like having your shoulders rubbed?” she asked.

I thought about that. “I think I would, but…I’d rather you hold me. And maybe rub my shoulders while you hold me.”

“All right.” I felt Leia’s warm hand slide slowly across my shoulders, and then up and down my back. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been touched with that kind of gentleness; I inadvertently made a noise. “Everything okay?”

“That feels so good,” I said.

Leia chuckled softly. “I’m glad you like it.”

I laid my head on Leia’s shoulder while she continued holding me with one arm and using her other hand to touch my back. Eventually her hand slid up to the back of my neck, stroking me with just her fingertips. I made a whimpering sound.

“Are you okay?”

“Please don’t stop,” I said.

Leia went back to her gentle caresses on my back and shoulders, but something was wrong; through the Force, I could feel her presence fading, as if she were shutting herself off from me the way Luke had shut himself off from the Force.

I tightened my arms around her. “Don’t cut yourself off from me,” I said.

She didn’t answer me for a moment. “You might sense something you don’t want to know.”

“It’s all right,” I insisted.

She kissed me, a soft touch of her lips on my hair, and let me sense what she had been hiding. I gasped at I sensed the painful, yawning emptiness of loneliness in her, the anguish of losing so many people she cared for. I was wondering why she would want to hide that from me when I sensed something else, barely noticeable underneath her sorrow: she desired me.

It took me a few moments to discern that what I was sensing was desire; when I had felt such things from others before, the motivation had been more about power, domination, violence, or taking advantage of someone weaker; what Leia wanted from me was closeness and connection.

“Oh,” I whispered.

Leia sighed, a resigned noise. “I didn’t come here to make you feel uncomfortable,” she said, “or try to pressure you into something you don’t want. I’ll go now.” She gave me a chaste kiss on my forehead and let me go, or at least tried; I hugged her close again.

“Don’t go,” I said. “Please stay with me, Leia.”

“Hmm,” she mused. “I suppose I should be glad you trust me to control myself.”

I buried my face in her hair. “What if…what if I said I didn’t need you to do that?” I could barely believe the words had come out of my mouth, but I didn’t regret saying them. I had never understood why anyone might want to have sex unless they wanted children or to take advantage of someone who was willing to trade sex for a few quarter-portions. But if sex with Leia was anything like her holding and touching me, then I was at least willing to try. Leia had also come right out and said she didn’t want to pressure me, so if I changed my mind, she would listen to me.

Leia leaned back enough to take my face in her hands, resting her forehead against mine. “I can sense that not only do you not want me, you don’t desire anyone. I know you’re feeling afraid and lonely right now, but you should have maybe thought over that last sentence a little before it came out of your mouth.”

I bit my lower lip. “But I like it so much when you touch me. I thought…”

“How about we stick to me touching your back for now?” she suggested, moving one hand to the base of my spine and the other to the nape of my neck. “Besides, there was this little recent incident that involved me getting blasted into space and almost dying, and a following incident that resulted in me needing to visit the medical bay again, so Dr. Kalonia insisted that I take it easy. Or at least try to.” 

“Is it really that…strenuous?” I wondered aloud.

Leia snickered, once, but it was a sad sound. “Well, what Amilyn and I got up to was. I have never seen Kalonia glare at anyone like she did at Amilyn when I ended up in the medical bay.”

One of those names was unfamiliar to me. “Amilyn?” I asked.

“Vice-Admiral Holdo,” Leia clarified. I couldn’t help but think _Good for Vice-Admiral Holdo_ , but I also felt a stab of anger that she had put Leia in danger. Leia must have sensed what I felt, because she added, “She didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you either,” I said. “But…” I had never kissed anyone on the lips before, but I didn’t even have to think about it to know that I wanted my first kiss to be with Leia. “Can I kiss you?”

Leia kissed my cheek, right next to the corner of my mouth. “If you want. But, Rey, I can sense how alone you feel. Do you actually want to kiss me, or do you just want to feel less alone?”

I thought the most accurate answer was “both”. “You make me feel less alone,” I said. “I want to kiss you, but that is part of it.”

Leia cradled my face in her hands again. “Good enough for me.”

She kissed me then, and for a long moment, I forgot about everything but her lips on mine. Back on D’Qar, I had seen members of the Resistance kissing with their tongues practically hanging out and grabbing each other lustfully; it was nothing like that with Leia, whose kisses were gentle and whose hands stayed on my face, her thumbs tracing my cheekbones.

I completely lost track of how much time I spent kissing Leia, but it wasn’t long enough. I made a noise of protest when she stopped kissing me to ask, “How was that?”

I had briefly forgotten how to form words, so naturally I chose to answer by kissing Leia again. This time, I felt her hands exploring my back, her fingertips running along my spine. Oh, it felt good. It felt so good I almost lost track of what I was doing with the kisses, and Leia leaned back and said, “Are you planning on sleeping at any point?”

“I’d rather kiss you,” I said.

Leia kissed me again, but just once. “How about we kiss more in the morning?” she asked me. “You must be tired. And I have to be up too. There may not be much of it left, but I still have a Resistance to run.”

I couldn’t help but feel disappointed, but… “Can you hold me while we sleep?”

She gave me a quick squeeze. “I can definitely do that. Lie down on your side.”

I lay down. Leia pressed herself against my back, holding me close with her arm around my waist. I already knew I loved it when Leia held me, but it was a little different—better, even—when we were lying down. There was something intimate and trusting about sleeping in the same bed with someone; back on Jakku, allowing someone into your sleeping quarters meant…well, first of all, that you trusted them not to steal your food, and trusting anyone that much was an extremely rare phenomenon. Being killed so your food and whatever other possessions you owned could be stolen was also a possibility. It was strange in a wonderful way to not only be sleeping in the same bed with someone but to also have that person holding me.

“Is this okay?” Leia asked.

“Oh, yes,” I said.

I blushed a little as I realized I could feel the softness of Leia’s breasts against my back. Would she ever want me to touch her there? Would she want to touch my breasts? I thought that I would like that; Leia touching me in general was lovely. But as for touching her…my hands were rough and scarred and callused. She may have hated being called “princess”, but she was still _Leia Organa_. She deserved better than a scavenger’s hands on her body.

“Credit for your thoughts,” said Leia sleepily.

“Why do you desire me?” I asked. “I know you…” How had she put it? “…think highly of me, but I’m still a scavenger. When I first got to D’Qar, Dr. Kalonia almost panicked at how thin I was. My hands are…are beaten up.”

Leia reached to cover one of my hands with hers. “I happen to like your hands,” she said, her voice warm and low. “And I think you’re beautiful.”

Tears stung my eyes. “Really?”

Leia kissed my shoulder. “Yes. Really.”

I turned over and hugged Leia hard, crying openly again. Leia went back to touching my back the way I liked so much. “I should give compliments more often,” Leia said. “Especially to you.”

Thanks to Leia’s embrace, I was able to calm down fairly quickly. Leia covered us with the sheets and I settled down with my head resting against her chest. I wanted to listen to her heart, and her breasts made quite a nice pillow. Leia kissed the top of my head and told me good night, and I wanted to stay awake to savor Leia holding me, but I hadn’t slept well in weeks and Leia’s presence was soothing. I fell asleep quickly.

I woke up what felt like a few hours later and I instinctively reached for Leia, but she wasn’t there. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and saw Leia perched on the edge of the bed, facing away from me, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold herself together. “Leia?” I asked groggily.

She turned to look at me, her face streaked with tears. “Rey.” Her voice was raspy. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help you sleep, not wake you.”

I put my arms around Leia and kissed her cheek. “Why can’t you sleep? Is it my fault?”

“No, not at all.” Leia touched the back of my hand. “I had nightmares.”

I kissed Leia’s hair. “Can I help?”

She squeezed my hand. “Just stay right there.”

I pressed my chest to Leia’s back and kissed her shoulder, remembering how good it had felt to have her holding me like that. After a short while, Leia patted my hand and told me that she was okay. We lay down again, tangled up in each other, and this time both of us slept until the morning.

When I woke, it took me a moment to identify the comforting presence in bed next to me, and a smile came to my face when I realized that it was Leia. I probably should have questioned how this woman had become so important to me overnight, but instead, I snuggled close to Leia and kissed her hair. I noticed that her hair smelled nice, but I couldn’t identify what the smell was. I made a mental note to ask her.

Leia stirred a little in my arms. “Morning, Rey.”

“Good morning,” I said, and moved to kiss her on the mouth, but she stopped me.

“Have you ever had a relationship before?” she asked me.

“No,” I said, puzzled.

“First lesson,” she said. “Never kiss someone right after waking up; we’ll both have morning breath. Wait until you’ve brushed your teeth.”

Finn had had to teach me what brushing your teeth was, but I thought that made sense. “Okay.”

Leia reached for her cane; I got up and touched her shoulder. “Do you need help?”

“I’m all right, Rey, but thank you.”

Leia took the bathroom and I dressed in the berth where we had slept, then came into the bathroom to brush my teeth. As soon as both of us were rid of our “morning breath”, I kissed her. I had never had anyone to kiss before. Now I wondered how anyone who was in a loving relationship ever stopped kissing their lover.

“Rey,” said Leia eventually, “you realize that I have other duties besides kissing you, right?”

“No,” I said, feeling playful.

She shook her head. “At least let me fix my hair.”

I stepped back from her reluctantly. I was interested in seeing how she managed to get her masses of hair into those elaborate hairstyles I always saw her wear. “All right.”

I did my hair up into the three buns I always wore and then watched Leia. As I watched her clever hands braid and twist and pin her hair into the style I had seen her wear when I had first returned the _Falcon_ to the Resistance, I decided it was my favorite of her hairdos so far.

“Why do you always do your hair up like that?” I asked. “It takes a while. Do you always have time?”

Leia didn’t answer at first. “It was Alderaanian tradition to always…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. I heard her stifle a sob and saw her cover her face. I immediately wrapped my arms around her, and she clung to me hard. “There have been so many losses,” she said, her voice strangled. “Too many. I don’t know how much more I can stand.”

Remembering how much it had calmed me, I slid one hand up and down Leia’s back. I didn’t know what to say; I couldn’t say, “it’s all right”, because it wasn’t all right. Leia’s son had fallen to the Dark Side and was never coming back to her, and her brother and both her lovers were dead along with the majority of her Resistance. I knew she had faith in what was left of the Resistance, but that wouldn’t bring back anyone she had loved who was gone. I felt a brief sting in my heart as I wondered if she was only turning to me for comfort because so few others were left.

“I’m sorry,” Leia whispered. “I’m not usually like this.”

This time I could say “it’s all right” and mean it, so I did, followed by “I don’t blame you.”

“I miss them.” Her voice held so much anguish that I felt tears come to my own eyes, or maybe I was just sensing her sorrow.

Again, I didn’t know what to say, so I kept holding Leia. I wanted to kiss her hair, but I didn’t want to muss her hairstyle, especially knowing that such intricate hairstyles were traditional on her home planet. I guessed that she kept them up to pay homage to her destroyed planet, and I couldn’t help but mentally kick myself over asking her why she didn’t favor more simple hairdos. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You couldn’t have known,” she assured me, kissing my cheek. She stepped back from my embrace and touched my cheek. “I’m all right. We should get to morning chow. I’m not sure what…what’s left of the kitchen staff was able to whip up, but I’m sure they did their best.” She eyed me. “And you definitely need food.”

Leia gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror, made a comment about waterproof eyeliner, and we alighted from the _Falcon_ and walked to the new base holding hands. I was a little surprised that Leia was willing to be affectionate with me in front of the other Resistance members, but when we got surprised glances, she only looked at me and gave me a brief, tiny smile.

It turned out that Leia was absolutely right about her Resistance having quickly made the best of a disastrous situation: there was already a rough schedule in place for meals, and all available hands were borderline frantically seeking out any supplies they could get their hands on. I felt my heart begin to pound painfully as I thought of how many people I had known from my brief time on D’Qar who surely hadn’t survived the First Order’s onslaught, especially those who I had met when I was helping to fix X-wings and bombers. There was no longer any…any place for me to go to help fix ships because there were no ships left. The entire Resistance fleet consisted of the _Millennium Falcon_.

Leia must have noticed or sensed what I was thinking about while we were having breakfast because she touched my shoulder and said, “Why don’t you help with the new garden?”

I almost said “Since there aren’t any ships for me to work on?”, but managed to cut myself off. The last thing I wanted to do was upset Leia again. “The garden?” I repeated. “But…I’m from Jakku.”

“Exactly. I know how much you like green.” She smiled. “And besides, everyone is taking whatever jobs they can, even if it’s not exactly their…expertise.”

The gardening crew was indeed glad to have me, even when I revealed that I grew up in a desert and had no idea how to garden. Another human, a young dark-skinned woman named Ekeopara, was assigned to teach me and a few other novice gardeners whose usual jobs were currently…I didn’t want to think about it. Ekeopara was a good teacher, if a little harried due to not knowing how much expertise her students had.

I had never had my hands in real dirt (Ekeopara told me it was called “soil”) before. It was a struggle not to savor the cool moisture of the dirt against my hands, so different from harsh and coarse sand, and watch in fascination at the others’ work, burying the brown roots of delicate, leafy green plants so they could thrive. I remembered seeing the spinebarrel flower poking through the sand near the downed AT-AT where I used to live and couldn’t help but think of how different these plants were; rescued from a place under attack, and now being deliberately nourished and cared for. It made me think of Leia and how she had come to stay the night with me.

I had settled into a soothing routine of planting when something happened that I had hoped to never experience again: Ben So—Kylo Ren forced his way into my mind.

“Leave me alone!” I hissed under my breath before he could say anything. I looked frantically around the garden, moving my eyes but not my head so I wouldn’t alert anyone to my distress. I didn’t want anyone overhearing.

Mercifully, he was wearing a shirt this time—the only member of that family I wanted to see in any state of undress was Leia—but he didn’t listen to me. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about how I never want to see you again unless it’s on a slab,” I shot back. “Your own mother has given up on you!”

“About that,” said Kylo conversationally. “How did she survive?”

I wasn’t about to give him any information that might make him more dedicated to killing Leia, but bringing her up had given me an idea. “You should avoid contacting me,” I snapped, “because you might interrupt me kissing her!”

He chuckled, to my surprise. “So you’ve stopped looking for a new father and have settled for a surrogate mother? Be careful. She might ship you off to someone who will try to kill you too.”

My temper flared. “Or maybe we won’t only be kissing. Maybe we’ll be _in bed_.” I hoped that my anger would mask any deception; Leia and I wouldn’t be able to have sex until she was healthier, although we had, in the most literal sense of the phrase, slept together.

This time he didn’t reply for a long moment, and when he did, he sounded vaguely horrified. “What?”

“That’s right,” I said hotly. “Me and _your mother_.”

Kylo’s face was pale (well, paler than usual) and his eyes widened. He could no longer see into my mind—I wouldn’t let him, even if he tried—but I knew how basic sensing honesty or dishonesty was to Force users. “You’re…” he stammered, “you’re not lying.”

“No,” I said lowly. “I’m not.”

“You and…and…” Kylo turned away from me, his face contorted. “That’s _disgusting_!” He disappeared from my mental view, cursing. I let out a long breath and tried to go back to my work on the planting, but I was shaking. I had a feeling that I might laugh later, but…not yet.

It was only a few minutes before Leia showed up. “How’s our new garden coming?” she asked, but I knew perfectly well that she wasn’t here about the garden. I resisted the urge to run to her and fling my arms around her; instead, I wanted to her and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezing harder than I meant to, and Leia took me in her arms. I didn’t care about what anyone thought, and apparently neither did she.

“Hey,” she murmured, quiet enough that no one else could hear. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t want to tell her about Kylo, not right away. “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.

She let go of me and touched my cheek. “How are the rest of my gardeners?” she asked the rest of the people working on the garden. “You know how much I like pingpears.”

Laughter, some uneasy, some relaxed, rippled through the assembled people. “General,” said one of them, someone I didn’t recognize, “we made sure to get T’iil.”

Leia smiled slightly and nodded, but I felt such a strong wave of mingled sorrow and gratefulness and pain that I nearly flinched. I wondered why, but couldn’t bring myself to ask. I would much rather comfort Leia than upset her again.

Leia had a world of things to worry about aside from sensing my distress, so she disappeared back into the base and I went back to planting. 

I mostly tried to pass time without thinking so it would feel like night would come faster and I could be with Leia again. When night eventually fell—the days on this planet were long—I went to Leia’s quarters. I went to kiss her, but Kylo’s voice rang in my head, fortunately a memory rather than our strange, horrible Force connection: “That’s _disgusting_!”

Leia touched my cheek. “Rey, if you have second thoughts about what happened last night…”

I leaned down and kissed her, and the sensation of her warm lips on mine chased away any thoughts I had about us being together being wrong. Leia’s arms encircled me and she cradled the back of my head in one hand the way she had the first time she hugged me.

“You can’t solve all your bad moods by kissing me,” she said.

“I can try,” I said, unable to hold back a smile.

Leia shook her head, chuckling. “Due to my rank, age, and health, not necessarily in that order, I’m one of the first to get hot water. I know you didn’t have any way to bathe back on Jakku, so I wondered if you wanted to…”

“Really?” I whispered, cutting her off. “You got hot water…and you’d let me have a bath?”

“Well,” she said, ”it would me more like standing in the nonfunctional bathtub and scrubbing yourself with the hot water.”

“I can do that,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Leia said with a slightly sardonic smile. “I know Jakku is beastly hot; you might still be too cold. Come in.”

I came into Leia’s quarters. They were small, only slightly larger than my quarters, and plain; there was room for a bed, a night table, and a small closet. The bathroom, though, had space for an entire bathtub, if a little one. The only thing large about the place was what looked like a large, insulated bucket.

Leia pointed out where the soap, shampoo, conditioner (which I had never heard of before), washcloth, and towel were, but I could barely hear her over my racing heart. When Leia said she would give me privacy and turned to leave, I laid my hand on her arm and cleared my throat. “Leia…you don’t have to go.”

She looked at me quizzically, and then comprehension crossed her face. “No one ever taught you how to take a bath.”

I nodded, and she took my hand, stroking my knuckles with the pad of her thumb. “I’ll help.”

I thought I had figured out how to wash myself, but I still wanted Leia’s help. Besides, I was used to undressing for someone meaning I was offering sex in exchange for quarter-portions. I wanted to…get over that before the day I would undress to climb into bed with Leia for more than kisses. Leia sensed my nervous anticipation and took my face in her hands. “That is, if you’re sure.”

I kissed her. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.” She brushed a backhanded caress down my cheek. I loved when she did that. “Why don’t you undress and get into the tub? There’s not enough water for you to take a real bath, so you can stand up, and as soon as you’re ready, I’ll wash your hair.”

My hands shook a little as I took my clothes off, but I don’t think Leia noticed; she was still dressed in her elegant gown and robe, and she was busy finding a place to hang up her robe and getting her sleeves rolled up. She came up to the bathtub just as I was climbing in. I felt a surge of desire from her as she looked at me, but the only outward indication she made of that was to take my hand and give my fingertips a tiny kiss. “I like your dress,” I said, and I meant it. It was a light gray color, and the design was…I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it, but I thought it was very pretty and fit her nicely. As regal as her robe made her look, I wished that she hadn’t hidden her dress under it. 

“Thank you,” she said. “I wish the sleeves would stay up better, though.” She pushed one of them up again. “When I shower, I wash my hair first, then condition it, and then while the conditioner is in my hair, I wash myself. So that’s what I’m going to do for you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “I’m going to get your hair wet so I can wash it. Hopefully the water isn’t too cold.”

I closed my eyes and braced myself for a shock of cold water, but when Leia carefully poured a small amount of water over my head, it wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t too cold. She picked up the bottle of shampoo and squeezed a dollop of shampoo that was about the size of an eighth-portion into her hand. “This should be about good…I hope,” she said. “I’m used to my masses of hair.”

“Please don’t ever cut it,” I said. “I love your hair.”

She laughed. “I won’t. I’ve been thinking about dyeing it, though. I’m not sure how good it is for morale for the Resistance to see their leader getting old.”

I touched a streak of silver at her temple. “Please don’t,” I said. “I like it how it is.”

I think she blushed, but I didn’t see, because she said “I’m going to wash your hair now. The water is cooling as we speak, and I don’t want you to be cold” and set about rubbing the shampoo into my hair, and her hands working at my scalp felt so good that I couldn’t focus on anything besides the sensation.

“You’re liking this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” I sighed. “Can we do this every time I need my hair washed?”

She chuckled. “I would like that. I don’t know how feasible it is, but I would like that. Now, if you’re able to pay attention for any length of time, you have to make sure the shampoo lathers…”

She gave me a quick explanation of how to properly wash my hair, and then instructed me to close my eyes again while she rinsed it. Then she showed me how to use the conditioner, which, much to my disappointment, did not go on my scalp; Leia said it would make my hair greasy. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with that, but while I often saw other Resistance members who worked in maintenance covered in dirt and grease, their hair was usually clean. Leia’s hair was always immaculate. Maybe when you had access to baths, you were expected to keep your hair from getting greasy.

As much as I loved Leia touching my scalp, my favorite part of my makeshift bath was when Leia washed my body. I had never anticipated this—being naked in front of someone who desired me and not being afraid—but I loved how it felt as Leia moved the cloth over me, giving me a gentle if thorough scrubbing. She started with my face, being exquisitely careful around my eyes, then my neck and shoulders. She offered to let me wash my own chest, but I declined, and she was particularly careful as she ran the cloth over my breasts. “Does that hurt at all?” she asked me, and I shook my head no.

“Why do you ask?”

“I know how little you’ve had to eat for most of your life,” she said. “Starvation can interfere with normal development, including breast development.”

“Sometimes, when I hadn’t been able to scavenge much and I didn’t eat for a few weeks, they would…change,” I said, shuddering at the memory. “They would be sore.”

“I don’t know how well the Resistance is going to eat now,” said Leia grimly. “I wish I could promise that you’ll never go hungry again.”

I felt tears come to my eyes. “Thank you,” I whispered.

Leia rested a hand on my shoulder. “You’re welcome.” She went back to washing me, scrubbing my back, belly, hips, and then my legs. When she had washed all of me besides the area between my legs, she handed me the cloth. “Don’t scrub too hard,” she cautioned.

I could sense that she was much less comfortable washing me there than she had been washing my breasts, so I took the cloth and finished scrubbing myself. As soon as I was done, Leia picked up the insulated bucket again. “I had better rinse you before the water gets any colder.”

“Okay.” I closed my eyes and Leia carefully poured the rest of the water over my head. It was cooler, but not unpleasantly cold. As soon as Leia dubbed me properly rinsed, she wrapped the towel around me.

“Let’s get you and your hair dry before you freeze,” she said. “Hold on; I think I have a bathrobe you can wear.” She motioned for me to come into her bedroom proper, and I did, clumsily trying to keep the towel wrapped around me. Just as I was losing control of the towel, Leia handed me a garment that I recognized as a bathrobe. Gratefully, I slipped it on, letting the towel drop to the floor. “Go ahead and sit on my bed,” Leia said. “I’ll dry your hair.”

I obeyed, wondering what she was talking about, but—after retrieving the towel I had used from the floor—she produced a device that she called a “hair dryer” from a drawer, along with a small plastic bottle and a hairbrush. She sat behind me. “Can I brush out your hair? It might pull.” 

“Of course,” I said. Leia carefully ran the brush through my hair, starting with the ends and working her way upward. She held onto the hanks of my hair that she was brushing in order to keep it from pulling, which worked; it didn’t hurt at all. When she ran the brush over my scalp, it felt good, if not as good as her hands, and I was disappointed when she stopped.

“This is a mixture of oils,” said Leia, holding up the bottle to show me. “They protect your hair from the heat. As a bonus, they smell nice, although you don’t seem like the type to care about that.”

I was reminded of when I had noticed the smell of Leia’s hair. “Is that why your hair smells so good? Because you use that?”

She chuckled. “It might be. In any case, it will leave your hair smelling good.” I heard an unfamiliar noise that I eventually identified as the spray bottle as Leia sprayed my hair with the heat protectant. She brushed my hair briefly again and turned the hair dryer on; it blew hot wind through my hair, and I was delighted to find that Leia spent a lot of time touching my scalp and combing her fingers through my hair while she dried it. I closed my eyes, enjoying the contact and wondering how I could get Leia to touch my scalp more. Then again, she might just do that if I asked. 

After my hair was dry, Leia asked me if I wanted it braided. I had never figured out how to braid my own hair, and of course I wanted her to touch my hair more. It felt almost like I went into a trance, a little like I was meditating, when she touched my hair or my scalp. 

“Rey?”

I blinked. “You’re done braiding my hair?”

“What happens to you when I touch your hair?” said Leia, laughing.

“I really, really like it,” I mumbled. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheek.

“Shall we go back to the _Falcon_? Where do you want to sleep tonight?” she asked me.

“Mmm,” I said, thinking. “I can probably sleep anywhere you are, but…I think I want to sleep on the _Falcon_.” I liked the idea of sleeping in the same place where Leia and I had spent our first night holding each other, and where we had first kissed. 

“Fine with me,” said Leia. I felt her kiss my shoulder, and I sighed and leaned back into her embrace, covering her hands with mine. She took one of my hands in hers, caressing my knuckles with her thumb. I tensed; as much as I liked Leia touching me… “What’s wrong?” she asked me in a low voice. 

I bit my lip. “My hands are so…beaten up.” 

“They could use some lotion,” said Leia, not unkindly. “Would you like me to get you some?”

Lotion? Lotion was a luxury on Jakku, but any tiny containers of it were at a premium, as scavengers’ hands tended to take a lot of punishment, even with gloves. It must have been easier to get on other planets. “Okay.”

Leia unwrapped her arms from me, and I felt a little colder. She went to her bathroom and returned with a small bottle that must have contained lotion. Well, it was small, but it was still bigger than any lotion bottles that I had seen on Jakku. Leia pumped some of the lotion into her hand and reached for my hands, which I proffered, a little nervously. Leia took one of my hands between her two and worked the lotion into my rough, dry skin.

I felt my heart begin to pound. Leia’s warm, strong hands felt wonderful as they massaged mine. “It smells nice,” I said. Not as good as Leia’s hair, but nice. 

“I’m glad you think so,” said Leia. She let my hand go, poured another dollop of lotion into her palm, and took my other hand. I wondered how she knew to apply just the right amount of pressure as she rubbed the lotion into my hands; surely that required delicately honed Force abilities. Then again, if she could survive the vacuum of space… “Some lotions smell fake to me, but this one I like.”

I closed my eyes. “Leia, that feels so good.”

She chuckled. “Maybe we can make a routine out of this, if you like it so much.”

“I’d like that,” I whispered.

When Leia was finished moisturizing my hands, she kissed my cheek and got up to gather a change of clothes and some other assorted items—she called them “toiletries”—while I changed into my pajamas, and then Leia and I walked back to the _Falcon_ with me. When we got there, we brushed our teeth, and Leia started taking her hair down, but I stopped her.

“Can I brush your hair?” I asked.

“I’ll finish taking it down, since that’s a bit of an operation, but of course you can brush it,” she said, and a few minutes later, her hair was loose and she handed me the brush. Slowly, reverently, I ran the brush through her incredible hair. There were no tangles in it, but still I took my time, running both the brush and one hand through her hair and loving the sensation of the silky strands sliding through my fingers.

“Your hair is so pretty,” I said distractedly.

Leia chuckled softly, once. “You know, I actually believe you think that.”

I tried to figure that out. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“There’s an awful lot of gray in it for it to be called ‘pretty’,” Leia demurred.

“But it is pretty,” I insisted.

“If you say so.” She turned to me. “Would you mind continuing to admire my hair later? I have to braid it before I sleep to keep it from tangling…and I’m tired. I’d like to sleep soon.”

“Of course,” I said. I went back to my—our—bunk to wait for Leia, and when she emerged from the bathroom, I held my arms out to her. She lay down beside me and gathered me close. I think she meant to let me lay my head down against her chest—she had figured out how much I liked that—but instead, I kissed her, and it was a long time before I laid my head down, because when it comes to kissing Leia, I much prefer longer times to shorter.

“Are you sure you’ve never kissed anyone before me?” she asked, smiling.

“I’m sure,” I said, a little confused.

“You’re good at it.” She kissed my hair. “But if you would be okay with picking up the kisses tomorrow morning…”

“Okay,” I said, and took up my position from the previous night, wrapped in Leia’s arms with my head resting against her heart. I wanted to stay awake, to enjoy the closeness, but she started caressing my hair and it soon lulled me into a peaceful sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Leia continue developing their relationship, and Rey discovers that Leia's recent near-death experience is not her only health issue.

Leia and I soon developed a nightly routine; we would brush each other’s hair, and then Leia would braid it. Then she would rub lotion into my hands, and when she was done, I would kiss her over and over until she eventually told me that she would be busy the following day and needed to sleep at some point. We didn’t always fall asleep holding each other, but we did always settle down with our arms around each other and me using Leia’s chest as a pillow after we were done kissing. About a week after we first slept in the same bed, Leia had an idea. “Rey, how about we add something new to our routine?” 

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

Leia ran a hand up and down my back. She was very fond of my back; whenever she came up to me during the day, she’d say “hello, Rey,” and slide her hand across the low of my back. I loved when Leia touched me, but I hated being touched at all without warning, which was why she always greeted me first. “How would you like a back massage?”

I felt my face break into a smile. “I would like that. I would really like that.”

Leia kissed my hair. “Okay. How about you lie down on your stomach?”

I took her suggestion and felt her hands begin sliding over my back, and she kissed my shoulder. I sighed happily, and Leia edged closer to me and began massaging my back in earnest, starting with the low of my back and working her way up to my shoulders. I wondered if she was using the Force to determine what felt good for me, because she was applying just the right amount of pressure; just shy of hurting, hard enough to work out the knots in my muscles. I made a noise into the pillow.

“Are you okay?” Leia asked me.

“Mmmm…yes,” I mumbled, and Leia kissed my shoulder again and resumed her mission to work all of the tension out of my back muscles. I never wanted her to stop, but eventually she told me that her hands were getting tired. She gave me one last caress from the nape of my neck to my waist, and lay down next to me with her arm draped over me. I wanted to nestle closer to her, but I felt wonderfully light and boneless and didn’t want to move. “Let’s definitely add that to our routine,” I said. “Do you want me to massage your back too? Maybe in a few minutes when I can move more?”

“I’m fine, Rey,” said Leia, leaning over to kiss my hair. I frowned; I didn’t want to make Leia uncomfortable, but I didn’t think back massages were that intimate; was she worried about me judging her? Didn’t she know how appealing I found her? I felt like I could move again, so I pulled Leia close to me, pointedly sliding my hand over her back.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how to be…seductive? Was that the right word? I wasn’t trying to seduce Leia, exactly; was there a word for trying to encourage someone to receive a back massage?

She kissed my shoulder. “Okay.” She turned onto her stomach; I immediately started covering her back with kisses, sliding my hand from her hip up to her shoulder. I took my time moving my hands over her back, continuing to kiss her shoulders and the back of her neck. I both felt and sensed her relax.

“I don’t know if I’m any good at this,” I said.

“You’re very good at it,” said Leia in a sleepy voice.

I had touched Leia’s back before, but this was the first time I had paid it such deliberate attention. I decided I liked massaging Leia’s back very much, although I rather looked forward to the day she would let me touch her back without any clothing in the way, or at least something thinner; the Resistance’s new base was in a fairly cold climate, and Leia was dressed appropriately. Still, I was able to discern that Leia had a beautiful back.

“Rey?”

She seemed worried. “Yes?”

“I have a scar.”

I reached a few inches to the side of her spine near her lower back, where I thought I had touched something that was causing Leia discomfort, so I had avoided it. “Here?” 

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt when I touch it?” I asked. “Is that why you didn’t want me to?”

“No,” she said, and I thought she was going to say something else, so I didn’t reply; I was right. “It’s not pretty.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said. “Can I see it?”

I sensed something I had never thought I would sense from Leia Organa: fear. What was she afraid of? Surely she didn’t think I would…reject her or anything like that because she had a scar any more than she would reject me for the scars on my hands.

“It’s pretty ugly,” she said. She disguised the fear in her voice well; without the Force, I wouldn’t have known she was afraid.

“It’s okay,” I said in the most soothing voice I could muster. I didn’t know if I was good at being soothing. It wasn’t something I had had to do before I met Leia. I slowly pushed the hem of her pajama shirt up until Leia’s scar was exposed. It was odd-looking, but it was more interesting to me than ugly to see how the muscles had formed a sort of hill after what looked like a nasty wound several centimeters long had healed. Remembering how I had been worried about Leia judging my scavenger’s hands and how good it had felt to have her rub lotion into them, I began carefully massaging the deformed flesh. “How does that feel?” I asked.

Leia stifled the noise she made with her pillow. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to,” I insisted. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No.” Her voice came out strangled. I leaned over and kissed her shoulder before continuing to work the tension from the muscles that had been left deformed by her old injury.

“Does this ever hurt you? This scar?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Especially when the weather changes fast. Or I’m under stress and am carrying tension in the rest of my back.”

“Well, let me know when that happens,” I said, “and I’ll give you a back massage.”

“That sounds nice,” she said, her voice distant. “You can stop now. It feels better.”

“Okay.” I was very tempted to slide my hand underneath Leia’s shirt and continue touching the soft skin of her back, but I wasn’t sure how comfortable Leia would be with that. I slid just my fingertips under her shirt, which had been pushed up to her shoulder blades. “Can I…keep going?” I asked.

Leia was quiet for a long time. “Maybe some other time. Okay?”

My heart sank, but I didn’t want to push Leia into something she wasn’t okay with. I adjusted her shirt and leaned over to kiss her shoulder. I lay beside her and nuzzled close to her, and she turned onto her side, gathered me close, and kissed me gently. “Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” I said.

“When I offered you a backrub, I wasn’t expecting you to return the favor,” she said, and my brow creased.

“Why?” I said. “I like making you feel good.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, and then she was quiet for a long time. “Can we talk about this later and skip to the kisses?”

I wanted Leia to feel comfortable, and I definitely wanted to kiss her. I had loved the back massage, but my favorite part of my and Leia’s nightly routine was the kisses. I gathered her close and my eyes drifted shut as her lips met mine over and over, and her warm hands moved gently over my back.

As usual, I felt like I could kiss Leia for hours, but eventually she pulled back from our embrace and told me that she was tired and wanted to sleep. I gave her one last quick, chaste kiss, and we settled down to sleep. Leia had been telling the truth about being tired and drifted off quickly, but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t help but think about what Leia had said about not expecting me to return the favor when she had given me a back massage. I wasn’t sure what I was sensing, but something was definitely… _off_ about Leia. When I had first asked her if she would have sex with me, her objection had been about her health. Tonight, it had seemed almost as if she had been afraid I would be…no, not disgusted; that was too strong a word, but somehow put off by her body, and not just her scar.

I decided I wanted to do something for Leia, something to demonstrate how much I cared for her. I glanced around the sleeping area, looking for ideas, and my eyes fell on her cane. That was it! Leia carried her cane all the time, even though she was getting stronger and rarely needed it, but it was plain and functional. I thought she deserved something that suited her better; something that was strong and beautiful, like her. I could make her a new cane; I had built my own speeder, so surely I could figure out how to make a cane. The ornamentation might be difficult, as I had never worried about the aesthetics of anything I built before, and I thought I might have to ask for help. But I would figure it out.

The next day, I excused myself from work on the garden by telling Ekeopara I was working on something for Leia and went looking for a suitable piece of wood I could make into a cane. The climate on this planet was not freezing, but it was a bit cooler than D’Qar, and there were many trees that Ekeopara called “evergreen” whose branches seemed the right strength and girth for a cane. I cut several branches and brought them back to the new base, where I asked around, starting with the other people working in the garden and with hydroponics, if anyone was good at carving. 

That was where I ran into an issue: nobody had experience with ornamental carving, or really much woodworking in general. But Rose Tico took an immediate interest in the idea of making Leia a new cane, and helped me go through the available tools she used in maintenance to see if any of them were delicate enough to use in carving. Not only did we find a few, but we also figured out the best way to smooth the branches I had found and spent the afternoon making a few potential canes. I hadn’t spent much time with Rose before, although I knew that she and Finn were a couple; I had figured that I would like her, since she was with Finn, but I had never taken the time to get to know her. Now I was glad I had.

“So is it true what everyone is saying about you and the general?” Rose asked me as we worked on the handle of the third cane. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“I think I would be doing this anyway,” I said, “but yes, it’s true. Leia and I are together.” I wasn’t sure if that was how most people would say it, but it felt accurate.

“Awww,” said Rose, grinning. “I’m glad she has someone. She always seemed closest to Poe and Holdo, but she spent a lot of time making sure Poe wasn’t doing anything stupid, and Holdo is gone now.”

I felt a brief pang at the thought that Leia and Holdo had been lovers; I couldn’t help but compare myself to the statuesque and elegant vice-admiral. I tried to remember Leia rubbing lotion into my hands and telling me she liked them even though they were rough.

“Well, thank you for helping me,” I said. “I’m used to building functional things. I like plants that are pretty, but I’ve never made anything ornamental.”

“I’m glad to help,” said Rose. “Everyone here respects General Organa…and would like to see her happy, or at least happier.”

“I hope I make her happy,” I said. “I’m worried about her. That’s part of why I’m doing this.”

Rose’s brow furrowed. “Is she…sicker than she looks?”

“Not physically,” I said. “I don’t know if she’ll actually need this cane much. But I sense that…that she needs support right now.”

“Not surprising,” Rose sighed. “But we take care of each other in the Resistance. That’s how we’ll win against the First Order.” 

I nodded, beginning to understand what Leia meant about even the tiny remnant of the Resistance having everything it needed.

Smoothing out the branches was fairly easy. Slightly harder was making sure that there was a good hand-hold on it. The hardest part, which Rose and I labored over for several days, was the decoration. We practiced on larger pieces of wood, deciding on a pattern that made the wood look as if it were braided. I was rather proud of having come up with the design, having been inspired by Leia’s many braided hairstyles. Rose suggested adding the occasional flower woven into the braid pattern, since I had mentioned to her how much I liked working in the garden and that it had been Leia’s idea. We were only able to manage very simple floral designs, but when we finally had a finished, carved and varnished product (after ruining two canes with our inexperience at carving, and one by overdoing it on the varnish), we looked at each other over the completed cane and grinned.

“Do you think she’ll like it?” I asked Rose as I hefted it for a final inspection. “I think it’s beautiful, but does look hand-made.”

“I’m sure she will,” said Rose. “She may have been born into a royal family, but she has never cared about appearances or material things.”

“Even though she always looks beautiful,” I said, and Rose laughed.

“You are head over heels,” she said, and hugged me. “Tell me what she thinks of it!”

I hid the new cane in one of the cots in the _Falcon_ ’s sleeping quarters, and as Leia and I climbed the stairs up to the ship that night, I said, “I have a present for you.”

“A present?” she repeated, looking at me with a surprised smile. “What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion,” I said. “I just had the idea, and…this happened.” I retrieved the cane from underneath the sheets of the cot where I had hidden it and held it out to Leia. “Rose Tico did at least half the work, too,” I added, wanting to make sure Rose got the credit she deserved.

Leia immediately put her old cane to the side, took the new one from me, and examined it, running her hands over the pattern. “You made this?”

“Rose and I did,” I said. “I came up with the pattern, but I never would have been able to figure out how to carve it without her help.”

Leia tested it out, taking a few steps; I could tell she didn’t need it much, but I was glad I had selected a strong branch and made sure it was the same height as her old cane. “Well, you two did a damn fine job.” Still with the new cane in one hand, she held her arms out to me and I embraced her. She squeezed me tightly and kissed my cheek. “Thank you,” she said. 

“So you like it?” I asked.

“I love it,” she corrected, and I felt a pleasant warmth spread through my body. I wasn’t used to being told I had done well.

Leia started using her new cane the next morning, and when anyone commented on it, she was quick to mention that Rose and I were responsible. Leia and I were sitting together at morning chow and I was still flushed from the compliments I was getting on the work I had done on Leia’s new cane when I sensed Kylo Ren calling upon our horrible bond and saw him in the back of my mind. After what had happened in the garden, I had hoped he would stop contacting me.

“Just checking in to see if you’ve gotten over your insanity,” he said in that frustratingly casual tone of his.

Instead of replying to him, I looked over at Leia, trying to keep my rising anger at Kylo from showing in my voice. “Leia,” I said in a loud, clear voice, “I don’t believe I’ve mentioned yet how beautiful you look today.”

Leia glanced at me, surprised, but she was smiling. “Today? Really, Rey? When all my dresses need laundering and I had to wear my fatigues?”

“I think you always look beautiful,” I said, enjoying the growing horror on Kylo’s face. “In fact, you look so beautiful, I may just have to kiss you.” I rested a hand on Leia’s shoulder and kissed her soundly, ignoring the fact that she had been drinking caf—I don’t like the taste—and choosing instead to focus on several members of the Resistance were applauding and Kylo disappearing from my mind, cursing.

Leia leaned back from our kiss, her face pale and her expression stunned, and I realized that, in his shock and disgust, Kylo had forgotten to try to shield his connection to me. Leia must have seen him in my mind.

“Ben?” she whispered, her voice barely audible. I reached for her hand under the table and squeezed; she squeezed back, hard, her hand trembling. I leaned close to kiss her cheek and whisper “I’ll tell you more later”, wishing that we could immediately find a quiet place to talk instead of being the center of attention; multiple people were commenting on how “cute” we were.

After morning chow, Leia and I went to the _Falcon_ for privacy, and I started talking before Leia could get a question out.

“Snoke forged some kind of bond between me and...Kylo,” I said. “He knew I would try to win him back to the Light. It was a trap.” I swallowed past a growing lump in my throat. “I think…I think he made us see what we wanted to see in each other. Kylo wanted me to join him in taking over for Snoke, and I thought…” I blinked rapidly, but the tears came anyway. “I thought I saw him coming back to the Light. The Force…doesn’t show us all of the truth. What we want to see can affect what we think it means.” 

Leia was sitting on our bed; she pulled her knees to her chest. She looked small and frightened. “Do you know why he was talking to you?” she asked. She was trying to sound collected, and I wasn’t sure if I actually heard her voice shaking or only sensed that it wanted to.

“Snoke saw me as a threat,” I said. “I think…I think he wants me on his side. And…” I bit my lips. “He’s very isolated. That’s why I thought I could help.”

Leia pressed her face into her knees. I couldn’t hear her crying, but her shoulders trembled. I climbed onto the bed with her and gathered her into my lap, and she tucked her head against my shoulder and clung to me hard. I held her for a long time, sliding my hands over her back as comfortingly as I could, while Leia tried and failed to stop crying.

“Go ahead and cry, Leia,” I whispered. “I’m crying too.”

“I keep wondering,” Leia got out, “when it will stop hurting.”

I kissed her hair, which was already askew from the way she had nestled her head against my neck and shoulder, so I couldn’t feel too bad about mussing it. I didn’t know what to say. Leia was radiating multiple kinds of pain and I was powerless to make her feel better. “I want to help and I can’t,” I murmured.

“I’d rather be crying in your arms than crying alone,” said Leia. “You are helping.” She paused. “So, that day in the garden…”

“Kylo had been contacting me,” I said. “I was trying to…frighten him away by…by…”

“Telling him about us,” Leia finished.

“I think it worked this time,” I said. I didn’t feel like laughing at his reaction anymore. “Rose said we would beat the First Order by taking care of the people we love. I don’t think she meant it that way.”

Leia laughed, but it was a pained sound. “Did it work?”

“I think so, when I kissed you.” I paused, remembering the day in the garden. “Leia, what’s T’iil?”

She sighed and I sensed a fresh wave of pain from her, as if an old scar had been reopened. “It’s an Alderaanian plant. If not for the T’iil in our garden, it would be extinct.”

I decided not to ask how it wasn’t already extinct, and I was searching for something to say when she spoke again. “I could really use a cup of T’iil tea right now. It’s soothing, and it’s not like the taste could make me any sadder. Would you like a cup?”

“A cup of tea sounds good,” I said, still wishing I could find the right words to comfort Leia. She kissed my shoulder and got up, stopping in the bathroom to adjust her hair before taking my hand and leading me back to what she called the mess hall. The one food worker on duty knew exactly what Leia was talking about when she asked for T’iil tea, and a few minutes later, Leia and I were sitting in the mostly empty hall with steaming mugs of tea in our hands.

“How do you like it?” Leia asked me as if we weren’t drinking something that had come from her destroyed home.

“It’s good,” I said. “It is soothing.” I paused. “Leia, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my Force connection with…Kylo…earlier. I meant to, but…”

“It’s okay,” she said, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze.

“Do you want me to…” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I think Ekeopara will be fine without me in the garden today. I can stay with you.”

Leia took a long sip of her tea. “Thank you, Rey, but I need to be able to focus. And if you were around, I would be thinking about kissing you the whole time.”

I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Is…there any way someone else could take over for you, for at least some of it? And we could go back to the _Falcon_?”

Leia closed her eyes for a long moment. “I’d like that. But we can’t.” She sipped her T’iil tea again. “Speaking of focus, I need more caf. Especially after the T’iil.”

It took me a few seconds to puzzle that out. “Does caf help you focus? I thought it kept you awake.”

“If I drink enough of it, it does help me focus, but that isn’t true of most people.” Leia drained her mug of tea. “I have something called scattered focus. It’s a little bit of a misnomer, though, because anything that isn’t interesting to me is damn near impossible to think about for more than a few minutes, but if I am interested in something, I can spend hours on it. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s about the gist of it.”

“And caf helps?” I said.

“A _lot_ of caf,” she said grimly.

I took another sip of my T’iil. “Do you always drink so much caf, then?”

“No.” She closed her eyes. “Usually I have medicine, but it was on the _Raddus_.”

I slipped an arm around her waist and she leaned against me. After a long moment, she said, “I have a lot to do today. Why don’t you head to the garden? I’ll see you at midday chow.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

Despite my concern about Leia, I had a pleasantly distracting time in the garden, and at both midday and evening chow, Leia got more compliments about her new cane and she was happy to tell everyone who mentioned it that Rose and I had made it. And as usual, Leia and I walked to the _Falcon_ holding hands and Leia made sure she propped up her new cane carefully next to our bunk before taking my hair down so she could brush it. I always loved Leia’s and my nightly routine, but she seemed to be in an unusually affectionate mood, pausing to drop little kisses on my neck and shoulders as she pampered me. When it was my turn to massage her back, I thought she might be okay with me touching her skin, so I lifted up her shirt just a few centimeters and kissed the low of her back. She shivered slightly. “I’d really like to touch you without this in the way,” I said, pulling lightly on her shirt.

Leia sniffed. “And why would you want to do that?” she said.

I leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “Because I like making you feel good, and I like touching you.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Maybe another time.”

I lay down beside her. “Is something wrong? Do you not…do you not like it when I rub your back? I thought I could sense…”

Leia turned onto her side and pulled me close. “Of course I like it. Your senses aren’t lying to you.”

“So it’s not because of…of me? My hands?” I didn’t realize until it came out of my mouth that that had been worrying me.

Leia kissed me and rested her forehead against mine. “Rey, I like your hands. I like all of you.”

“And I don’t mind your scar, and I think you’re beautiful, so why don’t you want me touching you?” I said.

Leia squeezed me hard. “I don’t want you doing anything you’ll regret later.”

“I could never regret being with you,” I insisted.

She kissed me again. “Okay. But not right now.”

“Soon, I hope,” I said.

“Soon,” she agreed, her voice soft.

I settled down with my head resting against her heart, like always, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how I wanted to be close to Leia, prove to her that I thought she was beautiful. “Leia?” I whispered against the cloth of her pajama top.

“What is it?”

I paused as I tried to choose the right words for what I wanted to say. “Is there anything that is…not sex, but closer to sex than kisses, that we can do? That you’re okay with, I mean. I want to be…prepared for my first time.”

“Hmm,” she mused, her fingertips going to the back of my neck. I didn’t have a favorite spot on my body for Leia to touch me, but if I did, it might be the back of my neck. “Is it all right if I kiss your breasts?”

“I think I would like that,” I said immediately. I had been hoping for something I could do for her, but this was a start, and I wasn’t about to refuse anything that involved Leia kissing me. “Do you want to undress me, or should I do it? No, wait…I want you to do it.”

“I’d love to.” She kissed my hair. “I’ll probably be able to sense what you’re feeling, but if you need to stop or slow down, I want you to tell me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I lay on my back and Leia undid the buttons on my pajama top. She did it slowly, taking the time to part the cloth a little more with every button until my shirt lay open, exposing my entire upper half except for my arms. She leaned over and kissed me between my collarbones. “Want to take this all the way off?” she asked me in a low voice, tugging on one of my sleeves, and I wrestled my shirt off entirely. Leia pulled the sheets up around us. “Are you cold?”

“No.” The night was cold, but Leia was warm, and so were the sheets. I wanted to watch Leia, but my eyes closed as I felt her soft lips on my neck and her hands sliding up my sides. “Can we do this every night?”

Leia kissed the center of my chest. “If you want.”

I bit back a moan as I felt Leia’s mouth against the skin of my left breast for the first time. “Leia…” I clutched at her shoulders. She reached up and stroked my face as she kissed the swell of my breast.

“How does that feel? Not too much?”

“So good,” I breathed.

She kissed my nipple. “You want more?”

“Yes.”

She closed her mouth over my nipple and I cried out as I felt her soft tongue on me. “Too much?” 

“Mmm…” I wrapped my hands around her braid. “No, it just surprised me a little.”

“Okay.” Leia went back to suckling gently at my breast. I arched into the contact, gripping her braid tightly and hoping I wasn’t pulling. If this was her only playing with my breasts, I could only imagine what sex would be like.

“Leia!”

She moved her head, her lips still against my skin, to kiss my other breast. I couldn’t help but make noise as she took my other nipple into her mouth. Sweet Maker, it felt good. I clung helplessly to Leia’s hair, unable to stop making whimpering noises.

“Are you okay?” Leia whispered. “I’ve never sensed anything like this from you before.”

“That’s because I’ve never felt anything like this before,” I panted.

She kissed my forehead. “Do you need me to stop?”

I closed my eyes. “I want you to keep going, but I’m sure if you keep going, I’m going to want more, and I don’t want you to end up in the medical bay again.”

She chuckled lowly. “Fair enough.” She kissed me between my collarbones and lay down, gathering me close to her again.

“You make me feel so good,” I whispered. “I hope you liked that half as much as I did.”

She actually laughed, a lovely full-throated sound. “No, I _hated_ kissing my girlfriend’s beautiful breasts.”

I felt myself blush, both because Leia hadn’t called me her girlfriend before and because of the compliment. “Beautiful? Really?”

“Yes.”

I licked my lips. “Can I do that for you someday?”

She stroked the back of my neck the way I liked so much. “I’d like that.”

I laid my head against her chest, kissing her through the fabric of her shirt. “So would I.”

Leia caressed my hair until I fell asleep. I woke feeling refreshed and happy, and throughout the day, I found myself looking forward to our nightly routine more than usual, hoping that Leia would kiss my breasts again. I wasn’t paying attention to my senses, and didn’t notice what was wrong as I climbed the steps to the _Falcon_ , and I was taken completely by surprise when I walked into the sleeping quarters and saw that there was a staggeringly beautiful young woman—almost as beautiful as Leia—sitting on my and Leia’s bunk. Her face broke into a bright smile when she saw me, and she got up and flung her arms around me. “Hello, Rey,” she murmured, kissing my cheek.

I was too shocked to do anything. “What…?” I whispered, and the young woman leaned back and kissed my nose.

“It’s me,” she said. “It’s Leia.”

It was. Younger—maybe younger than me—and wearing that gray dress that I had said I liked, so alarmingly thin within it she seemed to hardly be there at all. She leaned in and kissed me, and I shivered as the tip of her tongue touched mine. She had never kissed me like that before. “Come to bed with me,” she said in a low voice.

I flinched back from her. “You’re not my Leia,” I blurted out, and the Leia who was not my Leia looked crestfallen.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “Don’t you want me?”

“No,” I whispered, the horrible truth washing over me. “It killed Luke when he did this, and he was trained. Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” said the woman who was not my Leia.

“No, where are you _really_?” I demanded.

“My quarters,” said the too-young Leia. “Rey…”

I was already running for the base. Before I could even process how many people I had knocked out of the way trying to get to Leia’s quarters, I was pounding on the door and screaming for Leia until my voice was raw. There was no answer.

My screams had brought several Resistance members, and I felt a rush of relief as I realized that one of them was Finn. “Leia’s in danger. I need to get inside,” I said.

Finn nodded. “On three.”

I counted to three, probably too hastily, and Finn and I charged the door shoulder-first. It shuddered and swung open, and I bolted inside. Leia was slumped over on her bed, not moving. I could sense that she was alive, but barely.

“No,” I cried. “No, no, _no_! Leia!” I gathered her into my arms, but I wasn’t strong enough to support her weight. “Finn, help me! We have to get her to the medical bay!”

Finn took Leia’s limp body from me and immediately hastened toward the medical bay. I followed on his heels, my heart pounding so hard it almost hurt. What I couldn’t get out of my head was _why_? Why had Leia done something so foolhardy? It wasn’t like her.

Dr. Kalonia cursed under her breath when Finn and I rushed in. “What happened?” she demanded.

“Leia tried to create a Force double of herself,” I said.

“Put her down here,” said the doctor, indicating the nearest bed. She eyed the people who had followed us. “Everyone out.” She pointed to me. “Except for you.”

Finn carefully laid my Leia down on the bed, nodded to me, and obeyed the doctor’s command to get out. “I don’t know much about the Force. Tell me what you know about Force doubles,” said Dr. Kalonia, waving some kind of instrument over Leia.

“N-not much,” I said, feeling tears begin to roll down my face. The Force allowed me to tell that Leia was still alive; I had no idea whether or not she would be all right. “Making one killed Luke Skywalker, but I don’t know if it was just making the double or that he was fighting while he did it, and he was millions of parsecs away. Leia made a…a younger double of herself. For only a few minutes, and all it did was talk to me.” _And kiss me._ “Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s unconscious.” Dr. Kalonia filled a syringe with some clear liquid and injected it into Leia’s arm. “Hopefully this will wake her up. At least she wasn’t exposed to the vacuum of space this time.”

I made a slightly hysterical noise. I watched Leia’s face carefully, and when she opened her eyes, I ran to her, even though I was sure Dr. Kalonia didn’t want me near her. “Leia!” I was sobbing openly now. “Leia, why would you do that? You could have died!”

“Rey.” Her voice was weak. I stroked and kissed her hair, unable to stop crying.

“General,” said Dr. Kalonia in an exhausted-sounding voice, “what the hell did you do?”

“Created a Force doppelganger of my younger self for Rey,” Leia said, struggling to get the words out.

“What do you mean, for me?” My voice rose to a pitch I hadn’t heard come out of my mouth before. “I don’t want a younger you! I want the real you! What you did could have killed you! Leia, what were you thinking?”

Leia closed her eyes.

“You’ll have to stay here overnight, General,” said Dr. Kalonia sternly. “Given the circumstances, I should keep you here for observation for seventy-two hours.”

“I know,” said Leia dully. “Would it help if I said that I wasn’t _trying_ to kill myself?”

“You know it doesn’t,” said Dr. Kalonia, going back to a drawer of medical supplies. “And you know I’d be hooking you up to an eloza’ipira IV if we had any.”

“I wish you could,” Leia sighed.

“What are you talking about!?” I shouted. “Leia…are you sick? What’s the matter?”

Leia looked over at me, the expression in her eyes unspeakably sad. “Scattered focus isn’t the only thing that’s wrong with me. I also have frenzy disorder. Another misnomer. I’ll be miserably depressed for a few months and then spend a few days unable to sleep because I’m too full of energy to stop moving or thinking.”

“And your medicine was on the _Raddus_ ,” I whispered. Leia nodded. “So why did you make that Force double? Did you just…not care if it hurt you?”

“I wanted you to have a good first time,” she said, her voice sounding completely drained. “I thought you deserved better than me…or at least me now.”

I felt a horrible chill run down my spine. “No,” I whispered. “No, that’s not true! What if you had died? You don’t think I’d be devastated? Can’t you sense that I love you?”

She blinked, and I saw a flicker of light come back to her dull eyes. “You what?”

I kissed her. “I said I love you.”

“I would offer to give you privacy if the general weren’t under observation,” said Dr. Kalonia. I looked up at her.

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

Dr. Kalonia looked at me with a grim expression on her face. “Mental illness isn’t my specialty, so until we get her more medicine, there’s not much I can do except…”

“Check in with me every week or so,” Leia finished. “Rey?” she touched my face. “I love you too. But you don’t have to stay with me…knowing how sick I am, and that my brain leads me to do stupid things like creating a Force doppelganger because I think I’m too old for you. Don’t worry, I’m aware that it’s stupid.” 

I rested my forehead against hers. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want me to stay with you all the time instead of working in the garden…”

“Hold on,” Dr. Kalonia cut me off. “You work in the garden? Do we have algarine torve or eloza’ipira?”

I thought back to the plants Ekeopara had had me work with. “I think we have both,” I said. “Why?”

“We lost our laboratory, and our chemist who used to synthesize the general’s medicine from those plants,” said Dr. Kalonia, “but if we still have the plants, it might be worth trying to make some teas out of them.”

“Hell, I’ll try it,” Leia sighed.

“Is there any way I can stay here tonight?” I asked, caressing Leia’s hair.

Dr. Kalonia regarded us. “I know what you’re thinking, and no, you can’t both sleep in the same bed, but Rey, you can take the next one over.”

“Okay.” I kissed Leia’s forehead again. “I’ll go get our things.” I got up, but Leia slipped her hand into mine as I stood.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

I brought her hand up and kissed her fingertips. “Maybe I don’t. But I want to.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey does all she can to help as Leia's symptoms worsen.

When I woke, I reached instinctively for Leia, and knew immediately that something was wrong. My eyes snapped open, taking in the sight of the medical bay, and I felt an awful lurch in my stomach as memories from the previous night flooded back. Leia was asleep on her bed, or at least still; I couldn’t sense as much from her as usual. “Leia?” I whispered, and she turned toward me.

“Morning, Rey,” she said, her voice weary. I got up to kiss her, but she stopped me. “Morning breath,” she reminded me with a tiny smile.

“Okay,” I said. “How are you feeling? Better?”

She took a deep breath. “A little. But don’t expect me to get better on my own. Frenzy disorder is a chronic illness.”

I squeezed her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Listen to me tell you the stupid things my brain is doing and tell me how stupid they are,” said Leia, sitting up laboriously. “At least ninety percent of having an illness like this is being sick of your brain’s own fathier-shit, at least during the sad phase.”

I slid my hand up and down her back. “Like doing something that could kill you so I could sleep with you when you were my age?”

Leia rubbed her hands over her face. “Like that.”

I shook my head. “Did you think about how I would have felt if it had killed you? Did you think about how _the Resistance_ would have felt?” 

She looked at me, a sad and rather embarrassed expression on her face. It wasn’t a look I was used to seeing from her. “I was thinking of how no one answered my distress call when we were cornered by the First Order. I thought I might be more useful as a martyr than as a leader…and you could easily find someone closer to your age.”

I sat beside Leia and wrapped my arms tightly around her, as much to comfort myself as her. “Don’t say that.”

Leia kissed my shoulder. “I told you last night that it was stupid.”

“I see you two are up,” said Dr. Kalonia as she walked in. “Rey, would you mind getting breakfast for the both of you?” She eyed me. “You should have a physical while you’re here, or at least soon. You’re likely undernourished.”

“Let’s just hope we can feed you enough,” said Leia, giving me a quick squeeze.

I untangled myself from Leia and was about to head to the mess hall when I remembered something Dr. Kalonia had said earlier. “Should I stop by the garden and see if any of those plants are ready to be made into a tea?”

“You should,” said Dr. Kalonia.

“So, do we know anything about contraindications of algarine torve weeds and eloza’ipira at sub-therapeutic doses?” Leia said to the doctor in a voice that was almost too casual, and Dr. Kalonia scowled. I wondered if that was the kind of scowl she had given Vice-Admiral Holdo.

“We don’t, and we never will,” said the doctor sternly. “There’s no access to marcan herb on this planet, and I won’t pretend I don’t know that at least one person on this base is brewing homebrew hooch, but General, if you end up here with alcohol poisoning—“

“I’m relieved of duty. I know. I’ve heard it enough times, from doctors even crankier than you,” Leia sighed.

I felt like I was missing something. I looked at Leia for an answer, and she shrugged. “It’s called self-medicating. Marcan makes me feel normal. Alcohol—“

“Sounds like something I could use right now,” Dr. Kalonia interjected.

Leia must have noticed how confused and lost for what to do I was. “Rey, I’m sure Dr. Kalonia will lecture you on how to keep me in line after breakfast. Right now, would you mind going to the mess hall?”

I nodded. As I left, I heard Dr. Kalonia muttering “Keep _you_ in line. That will be the day.”

Ekeopara, fortunately, knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that I needed a couple of herbs for Leia, even when I stumbled over the pronunciations. A few minutes later, the kitchen staff had a tea with algarine torve and eloza’ipira steeping. I went back to the medical bay with the tea and gave it to Leia, then went back to the mess hall for our breakfast.

“Thank you, Rey,” said Leia as I carefully set a tray of food on her lap. “I see you remembered my caf.”

“Of course,” I said. I sat down next to her and tried not to bolt down my own breakfast; I still couldn’t help but marvel at how much I got to eat, and it seemed like I was always hungry.

"Don't eat too fast,” Leia cautioned me.

“I know,” I said. “When I first arrived at the base on D’Qar, I wasn’t used to being able to eat this much, and I would get sick.”

Dr. Kalonia heard me and walked over. "Does that still happen?" she asked me, and I shook my head no.

"Not usually," I said. "I'm better at pacing myself now.”

“Hmm,” said Dr. Kalonia. “I’m still scheduling you for a physical.” She took out one of those flat digital devices that everyone in the Resistance who had an important job seemed to carry. “How’s tomorrow at 1400 hours?”

I didn't want to look foolish, but I knew Leia wouldn’t judge me, and I didn’t think Dr. Kalonia would either. “What’s a physical?”

“A basic examination to get a sense of your overall health,” said Dr. Kalonia. “You’re from Jakku?”

I nodded, and Dr. Kalonia's expression looked somewhere between grim and annoyed. “Doubtless you’ve never had decent medical care.”

“We’ll have to fix that,” said Leia, giving my cheek one of those backhanded caresses I loved so much.

Leia and I finished eating breakfast, and then I went to the garden. I didn’t want to leave her, but Dr. Kalonia had to talk to her about her…condition more, and Leia hugged me and said she would come find me when she was finished.

I had trouble focusing when I was working on caring for the Resistance’s plants—I wanted to be with Leia—but she was true to her word and showed up to the garden within an hour. I ran to her and hugged her hard before she could even finish saying “Hello, Rey”. I didn’t want to let her go, and eventually she said “Are you planning on letting me greet everyone else at any point?” I heard a few of the other gardeners laugh.

“Can’t you greet people while I hold you?” I said.

“Looks like I have to,” Leia said, and waved over my shoulder. “Morning, everyone. And thank you for cultivating eloza’ipira, and algarine torve even though it’s a weed.”

I heard “you’re welcome” and variations on it coming from behind me, and Ekeopara said, “We’ll make sure we always have a good supply.” She paused and added, “And Rey, we’ll need you for that.”

“Well, you heard her, Rey,” said Leia, giving me a squeeze. “Do I have to order you to get back to work?”

“No,” I sighed, finally letting go of Leia.

She stroked my cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

I had a hard time waiting for that. When Leia returned to the garden in the evening to retrieve me, I kissed her in front of everyone and practically dragged her to the _Falcon_. “I missed our routine last night,” I said as we sat down on our bunk.

“Did you?” she leaned against my shoulder. “There’s not anything you want to change about it now?”

I frowned. “Why would I want to change anything? I mean, I was hoping we could do that thing where you kissed my breasts every night…”

“You still want me to do that?” I sensed surprise from her. “You don’t want to…cut anything out of our routine?” 

“Like what?”

“I know you like when I massage your back, but you don’t have to do it for me if you don’t want to,” she said. “Or kiss me. It’s sweet that you’re being…supportive in front of the other members of the Resistance, but in private, we can stick to what you’re comfortable with.”

“What makes you think that kissing you isn’t something I look forward to all day?” I said. I felt a horrible sensation like there was a hand squeezing my heart. “You never answered me. Last night, in the hospital. Can’t you sense that I love you?”

Leia was quiet for a long moment. “No. I can’t.”

I swallowed hard. “So you don’t—“

Leia cut me off. “I believe you. But my illness interferes with my senses. Mostly it dulls them, but it seems to especially like to interfere with my perception of how people think of me.” She put an arm around my waist. “Especially people I love.”

My whole body suddenly felt warm. I kissed her hair. “No one has ever said that to me before.”

“Said what? Oh.” She crossed her legs and pulled me into her lap. “I love you.”

I blinked back sudden tears. When Leia had said she loved me the previous night, I hadn’t been able to process it because I was so worried about her. Now, I felt completely flooded with unfamiliar feelings. “You do? Really?”

“Yes.” She kissed my shoulder. “I wish I hadn’t been in danger the first time I said it to you. I was hoping for something a little more romantic.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t be in danger at all,” I said, “but thank you for saying it.”

Leia and I held each other for a long time. Eventually she reached to take my hair down from its buns. “Can I brush your hair?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever say no to you brushing my hair,” I said. I sat on the mattress while Leia fetched our brush and ran it slowly through my hair. I closed my eyes and went into that trance state that I always seemed to enter when Leia brushed my hair or touched my scalp. Eventually, she kissed my shoulder and said that it was my turn to brush her hair if I wanted to. I did want to, of course, so I spent a long time running the brush through her amazing hair. I only said that I was finished brushing her hair because that meant we would progress to her massaging my hands, which she did an amazing job with as always. “I love your hands,” I whispered.

“I believe I’ve mentioned that I love yours as well,” she said, bringing my hands up and kissing my fingertips.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her. “I love when you massage my hands, but I can think of somewhere else I want you to touch me.”

“Are you ready for your back massage?” she asked, her hands sliding over my shoulders. 

I sighed happily. “I would love that.” I lay down and couldn’t hold back a smile as I felt Leia’s hands begin working the base of my back. “Leia…”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing,” I sighed. “I was just saying your name. I love when you do this.”

“I like it too.” She kissed my shoulder.

Leia spent a long time massaging my back, knowing just the right amount of pressure to apply as always. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it, but I couldn’t help but feel nervous; Leia hadn’t exactly said no to kissing my breasts tonight, but she hadn’t said yes either.

“Is something wrong, Rey?” Leia kissed my hair.

“How did you sense that when your illness interferes with your Force abilities?” I asked, stalling.

“Nothing can interfere with my ability to sense…well, anything negative,” said Leia wryly. “What’s the matter?”

“I was hoping that after I finished massaging your back tonight, you could do that thing where you kissed my breasts again,” I said.

She caressed my hair. “If you’re sure you want me to do that.”

“I’m sure,” I said. I sat up and kissed her. “Can you lie down? I’d like to massage your back now.”

“All right.” She stretched out on the bed and I covered her throat, shoulders, and back with kisses before pressing my hands into her lower back. Leia sighed. I loved hearing her make noise. I thought about how I had cried out when she had kissed my breasts and wondered if I could make her cry out the same way. I wanted to, someday, when she was more comfortable being intimate with me.

“I like making you feel good,” I murmured.

“I like it too,” she mumbled sleepily into her pillow.

I worked my hands over Leia’s beautiful back until they were sore, then leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “Are you ready to kiss my breasts now?”

She turned over and wrapped me in her arms. “Yes.” She kissed me soundly. “Lie down.”

I lay down on my back and Leia leaned over me, kissing me and stroking my face. “Leia,” I whispered between kisses, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Leia in a low, quiet voice that made me tremble. She sounded almost like she had as her younger Force double. Maybe if I could convince her that I loved her the way she was, she would at least feel comfortable enough to let me massage her back without her shirt in the way. “You know to tell me if you need to stop?”

“I know,” I said. 

Leia kissed and stroked my neck, sliding a hand underneath the fabric of my pajama shirt, and I couldn’t hold back a moaning noise. I was glad Leia and I had decided to sleep on the _Falcon_ ; I didn’t want anyone but her hearing me cry out in pleasure. Leia began undoing the buttons on my shirt, softly kissing my skin. “How does that feel?”

“So good,” I whispered. “I love when you do this.”

“Me too.”

Eventually Leia had my shirt completely unbuttoned and I impatiently tugged it all the way off. Leia sifted one hand through my hair and covered my right breast with her other hand, her soft lips closing over my left nipple. I whimpered. “Are you okay?” Leia asked me.

“Oh, yes.” My head tilted back and my eyes closed. I had accepted that when Leia did this for me, I couldn’t entirely control what my body or my voice did. Her warm, slick tongue circled my nipple and I cried out. “Leia!” 

She suckled gently at my nipple for what must have been a long time, but I wanted her to keep going forever. When she stopped, I almost asked her to keep going, but she was just moving her mouth to my other nipple. “I never want you to stop,” I panted.

“Then we wouldn’t get to the kisses, and you did say you look forward to that,” she said, and kissed my nipple again.

“Okay, kisses eventually,” I got out. “But please keep going.” 

Leia kept going, her soft mouth working its magic on my sensitive skin. I pushed my hands into her hair, moaning helplessly. “Ohhh, Leia…”

Instead of replying verbally, Leia reached to stroke my face. I wrapped my legs around her, pulling her closer to me. “Hey.” She kissed me. “Do you think we should stop?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to stop, but I think it’s probably a good idea to stop. And stopping means I get to kiss you.”

Leia leaned up and kissed me warmly. I kept my legs wrapped tightly around her, and I felt my hips moving almost of their own volition, rocking against Leia’s body.

Leia sat up, radiating anxiety. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry.” I unwrapped myself from Leia. “I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

“It’s okay.” She kissed me. “You want to go to sleep now?”

I slid my hands over her back. “We can keep kissing if you want.”

Leia kissed me, more gently this time, and we spent our usual delightfully long time kissing before she told me that we needed to go to sleep at some point. We settled down in our usual position with me using her chest as a pillow. “Leia?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to react that way to you kissing my breasts. It just feels so good.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” She kissed my hair.

“I still want to add that to our routine, though,” I said.

Leia chuckled. “Okay. Good thing you don’t feel desire.”

“What is it that I feel, exactly?” I wondered aloud. “The way my body feels when you’re playing with my breasts and it feels amazing.”

“I think what I’m sensing from you is arousal. Pretty normal response to having your breasts played with.”

“So…” I tightened my arms around her. “If I were to do that for you…”

“No,” she cut me off.

“Leia, don’t you want me?” I pressed.

She paused for a long moment. I could sense her wrestling with her feelings. “I won’t feed you some space-trash about how it’s against medical advice. That would be true, but it isn’t the whole truth.”

“So what is the whole truth?” I said.

Leia kissed my hair again. “When I get like this…the sad phase of my illness…I don’t want anyone looking at me, but at the same time, I want you to want me because it will make me feel better. And I don’t want to end up in the medical bay again, and spend half of your first time—which should be special—asking you for reassurance.”

“But aren’t you…” the words stuck in my throat.

“Only going to get worse?” she finished. “Yes, unless we can get me more medication, and I’m not ruling that option out.”

“So, some time? Eventually? And the real you, not a Force double?”

“The real me,” Leia promised.

I closed my eyes. “Okay.”

***

Leia drank her tea every morning, but it quickly became clear that it wasn’t doing enough. I sensed what was wrong before I would have noticed it otherwise; it was as if her presence was fading, like a radio signal blotted out by a sand storm. Outwardly, she seemed fine, at least when she was interacting with the other Resistance members; when she was with me, she seemed quiet and exhausted, like the effort of daily life was too much for her. We still went through our nightly routine, but there was a mechanical quality to her kisses, as if she was going through the motions because she had to.

“Leia?” I said to her one night as we settled down to sleep. “Do you love me?”

“Of course!” Leia’s arms tightened around me, and I sensed her coming back to me. “Come here.” She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me hard, and I sensed something I could best describe as the warm glow of her feelings for me shining through the dark cloud of her illness. “I’m getting worse. I can feel it. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But it does mean everything about me…fades.” She sighed. “At least temporarily. Keep asking me if you need reminders.”

“I may have to,” I whispered.

“You know what? I have a new idea for our nightly routine,” she said.

“What?”

“Before we fall asleep every night, we should say ‘I love you’, because I think we both need to hear it.” Her voice was wry and a little sad.

“Okay,” I said. I kissed her. “I love you.”

She smiled, but it was a bitter smile. “I know…I think.” She rested her forehead against mine. “I love you.”

I ran the back of my hand down her face like she always did for me. “I think I’ll like hearing that every night.”

“I should say it more often anyway.” Leia lay back down, sighing deeply. “I hope that damn tea starts working better.”

The tea did not start working better.

Leia stopped eating next. Not entirely, but she wasn’t eating enough. Dr. Kalonia had given me my physical exam—I had had to be undressed for that, and I was very glad I had undressed so Leia could wash me and the first time I had to undress for another person hadn’t been for the doctor—and had put me on a diet of at least 3,000 calories a day. So sometimes Leia wouldn’t finish eating her meal and would push her plate over to me, saying, “You need it more than I do”. Even when I refused, she wouldn’t finish eating. At times, she would serve herself food and not eat any of it. She started wearing that robe I didn’t like because it concealed her body so much, and high collars that hid her neck and her beautiful face. It was like she was shrinking away from me, both physically and in terms of what I could sense.

Even saying “I love you” to each other every night didn’t go as well as I hoped. One night I was drifting off to sleep in Leia’s arms, and she said, “You know you only have to say that as long as it’s true, right?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I mean, one day I’m going to say ‘I love you’ to you, and you’re not going to be able to say it back because it isn’t true,” she said, and I had that awful feeling where it felt like there was a fist clenched around my heart.

“No! Why would you say that?” I cried, and Leia sighed.

“I’m your first relationship, right?”

“Yes. So?”

“First relationships don’t usually last a person’s whole life. We bonded because we were both lonely and needed emotional support, but eventually you’re going to find someone young and beautiful and healthy who means the world to you, and you’ll lose interest in me.” She spoke the crushing words as casually as if she were giving a weather report.

“Don’t say that!” I hugged her hard. “I love you! You mean the world to me!”

She stroked my hair. It didn’t soothe me like it normally did. “That’s sweet of you to say, and…I believe you. I just don’t think you’ll feel that way forever. Especially in light of my illness. If it’s too much for you, you can leave. I’ll understand.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. Especially not when you’re…you’re suffering from your illness.”

“Rey!” Her voice was so sharp that I jumped. “Unless you’ve joined Dr. Kalonia as medical bay staff, you aren’t responsible for my mental health. You are, however, responsible for yours. And if dealing with my symptoms is too much for you, I don’t want you staying with me because you feel like you have to.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Then I won’t stay because of your illness. I’ll stay because I love you. Leia, don’t you think it might be your illness telling you that I’m going to suddenly stop wanting to be with you?”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Damn.” She sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

I sat up so I could look at her face. “I’ll always be here for you, Leia. No matter what. I promise.”

Leia squeezed her eyes shut tightly and began to cry. “Rey, I know you mean that, and I want to believe it, but I can’t.” She pressed her face into my shoulder, clutching me so tightly it almost hurt. “You’re the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I’m…I’m afraid of losing you.”

“You won’t lose me,” I insisted, feeling tears come to my eyes. I slid one hand up and down Leia’s back and kissed her hair, hoping I was being at least somewhat comforting.

“You deserve so much better than this,” she mumbled. “You should be in bed with someone like Rose Tico or Jessika Pava, not dealing with a depressed old woman crying all over you.”

“Shhh,” I said. “Don’t talk like that. I don’t want anyone but you.” I could sense the dark cloud of her illness growing in her mind. I shivered.

Leia took several deep breaths, as if to steady herself, and the dark cloud shrank. “I hate this fucking illness. I haven’t been this bad in…decades. Maybe if I had had to put up with not having medicine more, I would be better at handling this.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“You reminding me that my brain might be lying to me helps,” she said. She let go of me and sat up, wiping her eyes. “I need to figure out where I put my handkerchief. And…” She eyed the wet spot on my pajama shirt that had been left by her brief crying fit. “You might want to change your pajamas.”

I changed my pajama top and came back to bed. I hugged and kissed Leia, and we settled down to sleep nestled close to each other with her head tucked under my chin.

“Rey?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

I kissed her hair. “I love you.”

Leia slept through the night with me holding her, but the next ugly thing her illness threw at her was disrupted sleep in the form of horrible nightmares. It started with me waking to the sound of her trying not to cry, then holding her until she was able to fall asleep again. Sometimes, if she felt like it would help, she would tell me about them; many were about Han, or about her son. 

Then her nightmares started involving me, and when that happened, I could experience the dreams as she was having them. The first time she had a nightmare about me, I saw her surrounded by the ghosts of all of the Resistance members who had been killed by the First Order. There were so many, but I couldn’t react in horror; I couldn’t do anything. I could only stare as they wept and shouted, blaming Leia for their deaths, saying she had given them hope only to let them down. And then the still-living members of the Resistance—including me, and I could do nothing to stop it—screamed at Leia that they no longer trusted her, that she had failed them. On another night, Leia was watching Amilyn’s doomed ship through the window of her escape pod. She could see Amilyn on the bridge…and then I was there, standing beside Amilyn as she engaged the hyperdrive for a suicide run. It had taken a long, long time for Leia to calm down after that nightmare. Less terrifying but still awful were the dreams where she went to kiss me and I pushed her away, saying she was old and ugly and I could never love her—that nightmare happened three times—or the one where she walked into the sleeping quarters on the _Falcon_ to find me in our bed with Rose. 

Luke had told me that everything I had known about the Force was wrong, but I had heard rumors that Jedi didn’t have nightmares. So I turned to the Jedi texts. I had been relieved to find that they were written in Aurabesh and I could read them, but I hadn’t looked at them since leaving Ahch-To.

I probably should have been studying to become a Jedi and not waited to start until it benefited someone I loved, but there was no time to care about that now. I focused on figuring out how to train the mind in a way that prevented nightmares…and found nothing specific. It was only when I started thinking more creatively about how Jedi training might help prevent nightmares that I figured out that I might be able to help Leia through a kind of guided meditation before she fell asleep, and it might help her mind from straying to dark places. The guided meditation mostly involved providing Leia with more suitable or pleasant visions to supplant her nightmares, so she would have something to turn to when her sleeping mind listed off her deepest fears.

Leia had been so listless lately that I was surprised when she said she was willing to try the meditation, but she told me that she knew perfectly well that dealing with an illness like frenzy disorder was work and that she knew she had to do it, so when I felt like I couldn’t learn anything more on the guided meditation technique I would be using, Leia and I planned to try the technique one night before we went to sleep. We didn’t need to be holding hands and touching foreheads while we worked, but that’s how we ended up.

“Are you ready?” I asked Leia.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said with a grim smile.

I kissed her cheek. “Try to take deep breaths. I’ll tell you when I’m ready to start.”

“Okay.”

I waited until I sensed that Leia was as calm as she could realistically get. “I want you to think about one of your nightmares,” I said. “We should probably start with the worst one, so it will get easier.”

Leia snickered. “Tough call…but I suppose that means starting with the one with all the ghosts.”

I shivered. “Okay. I’m going to have to…to ask you to describe the ones I didn’t see, but I think I remember that one.”

“Oh. Fantastic.”

One by one, we went through Leia’s nightmares, and I conjured up a way to make them less horrible—for the one in which all of the ghosts of the dead Resistance members blamed Leia for their deaths, I had them telling Leia that they were with the Force and at peace—and mentally shared them with Leia. She may have been untrained, but she figured out right away how to accept the visions I was providing her with; the technique was a little bit similar to a Jedi Meld, so I had been worried it wouldn’t work with Leia, but it worked fine.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t hard. I was able to come up with comforting visions, sometimes with Leia’s help—I wasn’t sure what to do about the dream that had involved her walking in on me having sex with Rose, so she suggested that she find me only cuddling with Rose and that she would join us, with me sandwiched between her and Rose—but she still had to remember many of her illness’s representations of her worst fears all in one sitting. By the time we were finished, there were tears streaming down both of our faces and Leia was struggling to speak, but she insisted that we didn’t stop until we had covered all of her nightmares.

When we were finished, Leia and I lay down—“collapsed” might be more accurate—and held each other until we fell asleep, too tired to go through the rest of our routine (Leia had already braided our hair)…except that Leia gave me a brief good-night kiss and said she loved me, and I said it back. 

The guided meditation didn’t work right away, but at least it worked eventually. The first few nights, it was hard for Leia to integrate the visions we had planned out into her nightmares, but it got easier for her as time went on. After a few weeks, she was able to sleep through the night.

I was relieved to have been able to help, but it quickly became apparent that while the Force could help Leia with some of her symptoms, it could not cure her. She put on a brave face for the rest of the Resistance, but she didn’t feel the need to act around me; unfortunately, that meant she was quiet and withdrawn and visibly wrestling with the cruel voice of her illness whispering in her ear, so to speak. I developed a habit of asking her what awful thing she was thinking when I sensed the dark cloud of her depression grow thick and horrible, and she would tell me, and I’d help convince her that her illness was lying to her. I kept reading through the Jedi texts, looking for more techniques that could help me with that, but found nothing.

But of course I wanted to help Leia as much as I could, so I tried coming up with ways to distract her, at least temporarily, from the dark places where her mind so often went. I remembered how much I had liked it when Leia gave me a bath, so the first idea I came up with was that maybe Leia and I could take a bath together. I suggested it one night when Leia was brushing my hair.

“Remember when you gave me a bath?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why? Were you thinking of asking me to bathe you again?” She kissed my shoulder. “I’d like that.”

“I would too, obviously.” I said, my cheeks growing warm as I remembered how it felt to have Leia carefully scrubbing me. “I was hoping you could give me a bath again, and…maybe join me.”

Leia dropped the brush. “You mean you want me…in the bathtub with you?”

“Yes.”

Leia didn’t reply for a long time. “Why would you want that? Even when my Force abilities were working, I could tell that you aren’t physically attracted to me.”

I turned around so I could kiss her. “But I do think you’re beautiful, and I love being close to you.”

She leaned against me. I wrapped my arms loosely around her and slid my hands up and down her back. Eventually I felt her kiss the side of my neck and heard her whisper “Okay.”

I gave her a quick squeeze and kissed her hair. “Good.”

Taking a bath on the _Falcon_ was actually feasible now, because the Resistance had gotten the plumbing working and, since Leia and I had essentially moved into the _Falcon_ , I could draw water for a bath from a pump just outside, and Rose had helped me bring a bathtub—one that I had been led to believe was a bit shabby, but would have been a luxury on Jakku—on board. It took up most of the room in the tiny bathroom when it was in there, but I thought moving it was worth it so I could have a bath with Leia. When I returned to our bathroom with the water, Leia was wearing her bathrobe and had her hair down, but was standing next to the tub with her arms tightly folded, not bothering to try not to look nervous because she knew I could sense what she was feeling. I poured the water into our tub and gathered Leia into my arms. “We’d better hurry before the water gets cold. But I still want you to undress me.”

She kissed my cheek. “I would usually agree to that, but would you mind doing it yourself?”

I was a little disappointed, but decided not to pressure Leia; I was already a little surprised that she had agreed to take a bath with me. “Okay.”

I undressed and got into the tub. Leia walked up to the side of the tub, still wrapping her arms around herself. She moved to undo the tie on her robe, but her hands stilled at the knot, shaking. I stood up and went to her, leaning down to kiss her slowly; she didn’t respond at first, but eventually she relaxed and returned my kisses. I undid the tie on her robe, but still held it closed, trying to encourage her without pressuring her.

Leia moved my hands out of the way, letting her robe fall open. “You were right that we shouldn’t let the water get cold,” she said. I helped her take the robe the rest of the way off and lowered myself into the warm water, and Leia joined me. As we sat down, I pulled her into my lap, embracing her tightly because I wanted to know what it felt like to have so much of her naked skin against mine.

I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel; I let out a little gasp at the warmth and incredible softness I felt as I gathered her close. It almost felt as if time stopped while I processed how good it felt to have Leia’s bare body in my arms.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

I had lost the ability to form words, so I nodded. A few seconds later, I got out “You feel so good”.

“So do you,” said Leia, kissing my shoulder.

At some point—I hadn’t regained my sense of time—Leia kissed my cheek and said “we should probably make some attempt at getting ourselves clean now”.

“Okay,” I said. Leia leaned back from our embrace, and I took in the sight of her undressed body for the first time. I decided immediately that—as long as she was comfortable with it—she should just not wear clothes when we were alone together. I kissed her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful.”

She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me. “I actually believe you mean that,” she said. “Oh, and by the way, so are you.”

I think I blushed. Leia didn’t give compliments very often, which meant I was affected all the more when she did. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I should give you compliments more often. But for now, I have to wash your hair. Although I will be admiring you while I do that.”

I wanted to look at Leia more or maybe hold her, but I loved it when Leia touched my scalp, so I let her wash my hair. Leia had once asked me what happened to me when she touched my hair, and I still wasn’t sure exactly what the answer was. But it felt fantastic as always, and when she was done washing my hair, she got my attention by kissing my shoulder. “Do you want to try washing my hair? It might be a bit of an undertaking for you.”

I eyed her magnificent hair. “’Undertaking’ sounds like the right word. Maybe you should take care of it.”

I worked the conditioner into my hair while watching Leia wash her hair, which was almost as impressive as watching her braid it. When she was finished washing and conditioning her hair, Leia soaped up the cloth and ran it over my body. I wondered if her Force abilities had briefly come back to her, because she knew just the right amount of pressure to apply as she scrubbed me. “Is this okay?” she murmured as she slowly moved the cloth over my breasts.

I shivered. “Yes. It’s nice. Any time you want to touch my breasts is nice.”

She kissed my scalp. “I would have to agree.”

The last time she had washed me, she had let me wash myself between my legs. She did the same thing this time, and even though I wanted her to wash all of me, I didn’t argue, not wanting to spoil the mood. I finished washing myself, rinsed the cloth, and handed it back to Leia. I wanted to wash her, but was afraid of making her uncomfortable if I asked. I rinsed myself off while Leia washed herself. Maybe she could sense that I was disappointed because I had wanted to wash her, because when we were finished, she pulled me close again, this time kissing my shoulder and my neck. The water had grown cool, but I leaned against her. I would sit in ice-cold water if it meant Leia and I could be undressed and she could be kissing me.

But the water did grow colder, and that meant Leia told me that we should get out and get dressed again. We went back to our bunk, where Leia dried, brushed, and braided our hair. “Can I massage your back now?” I asked.

“I would like that,” she said, lying down on her stomach.

I lifted her shirt a few centimeters and kissed the exposed skin of her back. I felt her shiver. “I really, really like touching your skin,” I said, hoping that she would consider letting me massage her bare back, seeing as she had let me hold her while we were both undressed a few minutes earlier.

Leia sighed and pulled the back of her shirt up to her neck. “Okay.”

I leaned over and kissed her between her shoulder blades. “I know I just said this, but you’re beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Her voice shook slightly.

I kneaded Leia’s shoulders, closing my eyes to enjoy how it felt to touch her bare back. Maybe I was imagining things, but it felt like her skin was even softer than usual, maybe because of the bath. I leaned over and kissed her the way she did when she had her mouth on my breasts, keeping my lips against her skin between kisses. I wanted to cover her whole body with kisses that way, but I knew she would want me to get to actually massaging her. So I sat up and tried to give Leia her backrub like I usually did, but this time I didn’t want to stop even after my hands began to ache. Eventually I lay down beside Leia, caressing her back with a limp hand.

Leia pulled her shirt down and turned to face me. “I think it’s my turn now,” she said, stroking my face.

“Okay,” I said. “But can you do it without my shirt in the way?”

Leia hesitated before nodding. I pulled my shirt off, and sensed a brief flicker of desire from Leia, but then I sensed her cut it off as if she were ashamed of it. The first time I had sensed that she desired me, I had been glad that she didn’t demonstrate it, but now I wanted her to. I thought about trying to encourage her to continue after she kissed my breasts tonight, but I remembered that she had needed convincing to take a bath with me. I didn’t want to have sex with Leia if she might regret it later.

I lay down and Leia proceeded to give me the same wonderful, slow, gentle massage she gave me every night, occasionally pausing to kiss the exposed skin of my back. I turned over and held my arms out to Leia, who leaned down and kissed me warmly, first on my lips, then my jaw, my throat, and my chest. I wrapped my arms around her as her mouth and hands worked their magic on my breasts.

“Leia,” I whispered, “I can’t wait to do this for you.”

She lifted her head up and snickered darkly. “Why?”

I sighed. I had been hoping that Leia would understand now that I thought she was beautiful. “Because I want to make you feel good, and because I like your body. If you couldn’t tell by how I couldn’t take my eyes off you when we were in the tub.”

Leia lay down beside me and closed her eyes. I sensed the cloud of her illness darkening her thoughts and nestled close to her, kissing her hair. “I’m sorry, Rey. You’re going to get really tired of reassuring me.”

I sat up. “Okay. Then I’ll reassure you.” I kissed her briefly on her mouth and then lowered my head to her chest, dropping a small kiss on each of her breasts.

“You are too sweet,” said Leia. “Come here, you.” She pulled me close and kissed me warmly, and I both felt and sensed her relax underneath me. I wasn’t expecting someone like Leia—someone with such a dominant personality—to enjoy having me on top of her, but she seemed to like having me as a blanket. A blanket that could kiss her, anyway.

Leia and I kissed for a long time, and eventually she leaned back and said “You don’t need the Force to know what I’m going to say.”

“We have to sleep at some point,” I said. I gave her one more quick kiss and lay down beside her. She turned onto her side and gathered me into her arms, and I laid my head against her breasts like I always did. “I love you,” I mumbled against the cloth of her pajama shirt.

“I love you,” she said, giving me a brief squeeze.

Usually I just enjoyed using Leia’s chest as a pillow, but tonight I was reminded of something… “You know, Leia, I felt a little bit guilty when you were kissing my breasts tonight.”

“Really? Why?"

“Because when you finally let me do that for you, I’ll have so much more to play with than you do.”

Instead of replying, Leia got up. I sat up and watched, mystified, as Leia picked up her pillow. “What’s wrong?”

Leia hit me with the pillow, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike many of my other fics, this will not be a one-shot or a two-shot. I have no idea how long it will be, though; sorry about that.


End file.
